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Authors: Howard Jacobson
Tags: Fiction
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his present self â the truth is Henry never
was
in any position to influence events.
Ask what did for Henry professionally and you have to go a long way back. All the way to his not being the Baby Jesus, probably. Takes away from a boyâs outgoingness, that sort of thing. Accustoms him, as a matter of aesthetical necessity no less than manners, to holding back.
There are those who would say it was reclusiveness that did for Henry from the off: social reclusiveness in the sense of not wishing to appear too forward, or simply not wishing to appear at all, and political reclusiveness â a sort of intellectual absenteeism â in the sense of not liking the ideas which were being exchanged around him, and therefore not attending to them. A man out of sympathy with his age, eh, Henry? Like Lucretius in Matthew Arnoldâs understanding of him, who, âoverstrained, gloom-weighted, morbidâ, turned from the varied and abundant spectacle of Roman life, and âwith stern effort, with gloomy despairâ, riveted his eyes on the ânaked framework of the worldâ, looking for essences where other men sought appearances, and as a consequence retreating further and further into âdisenchantment and annihilationâ. Might sound tosh as applied to Henry, turning from the varied and abundant spectacle of life on the Pennine Way, and toshier still considering that the essences in which Henry sought consolation were the wives and girlfriends of other men, but we can only report on life as it feels to us, and that was how life felt to Henry. The world was a blank to him; he approved and noticed nothing unless he was in love with a woman. Then he approved and noticed nothing but her. It meant you got a good deal if you were the woman. It meant you got a lot of Henry. But of course that was only a good deal if a lot of Henry was what you wanted. And if by a lot you understood intensity rather than duration.
Not so much a little touch of Harry in the night: more a healthy dollop of Henry over the fortnight.
A refined and disenchanted reclusiveness, a principled absenteeism, what you might call a dandified old-fashionedness â modern but not adequate to modernity, was Arnoldâs summation of Lucretius â and a subtly-fibred sympathy, breathed in from his mother, for women to whom life had been cruel: those were the qualities, anyway, for which Henry, not least as a teacher and exemplar to the young, wanted to be admired. In fact, his fellow teachers thought he was hoity-toity, ludicrous and ill-educated; up himself and as often as not up someone he had no business being up. If you wanted the authoritative account (without the Lucretius) of Henryâs academic fall from nowhere to somewhere even lower, then that was it: a pathetic figure without provenance or curiosity, who hoity-toitied and hanky-pankeyed himself out of professional contention, hoity-toitied and hanky-pankeyed himself out of promotion, and finally hoity-toitied and hanky-pankeyed himself out of a job.
Their right to think vulgarly if they so choose, but Henry sees what happened differently. Henry believes he isnât teaching young persons how to think aloofly any more because young persons have finally cottoned on to the fact that he doesnât like them. As far as Henry is concerned a conspiracy of the childish runs the world â a magic number of the worldâs most influential children (âWe are the Bilderbergies, happy girls and boysâ) meeting every Christmas and Easter in a secret candyfloss garden on an invisible lemon meringue island somewhere off the sugary coast of Never-Never Land. Irk them and youâve had it. Henry engaged their baby wrath by writing one of their number a letter of recommendation without crayoning in a little house bathed in eternal sunshine. Henry forgot the golden rule and made it rain. Or maybe he didnât forget, maybe he just
wanted
rain. He was getting pretty
was
in any position to influence events.
Ask what did for Henry professionally and you have to go a long way back. All the way to his not being the Baby Jesus, probably. Takes away from a boyâs outgoingness, that sort of thing. Accustoms him, as a matter of aesthetical necessity no less than manners, to holding back.
There are those who would say it was reclusiveness that did for Henry from the off: social reclusiveness in the sense of not wishing to appear too forward, or simply not wishing to appear at all, and political reclusiveness â a sort of intellectual absenteeism â in the sense of not liking the ideas which were being exchanged around him, and therefore not attending to them. A man out of sympathy with his age, eh, Henry? Like Lucretius in Matthew Arnoldâs understanding of him, who, âoverstrained, gloom-weighted, morbidâ, turned from the varied and abundant spectacle of Roman life, and âwith stern effort, with gloomy despairâ, riveted his eyes on the ânaked framework of the worldâ, looking for essences where other men sought appearances, and as a consequence retreating further and further into âdisenchantment and annihilationâ. Might sound tosh as applied to Henry, turning from the varied and abundant spectacle of life on the Pennine Way, and toshier still considering that the essences in which Henry sought consolation were the wives and girlfriends of other men, but we can only report on life as it feels to us, and that was how life felt to Henry. The world was a blank to him; he approved and noticed nothing unless he was in love with a woman. Then he approved and noticed nothing but her. It meant you got a good deal if you were the woman. It meant you got a lot of Henry. But of course that was only a good deal if a lot of Henry was what you wanted. And if by a lot you understood intensity rather than duration.
Not so much a little touch of Harry in the night: more a healthy dollop of Henry over the fortnight.
A refined and disenchanted reclusiveness, a principled absenteeism, what you might call a dandified old-fashionedness â modern but not adequate to modernity, was Arnoldâs summation of Lucretius â and a subtly-fibred sympathy, breathed in from his mother, for women to whom life had been cruel: those were the qualities, anyway, for which Henry, not least as a teacher and exemplar to the young, wanted to be admired. In fact, his fellow teachers thought he was hoity-toity, ludicrous and ill-educated; up himself and as often as not up someone he had no business being up. If you wanted the authoritative account (without the Lucretius) of Henryâs academic fall from nowhere to somewhere even lower, then that was it: a pathetic figure without provenance or curiosity, who hoity-toitied and hanky-pankeyed himself out of professional contention, hoity-toitied and hanky-pankeyed himself out of promotion, and finally hoity-toitied and hanky-pankeyed himself out of a job.
Their right to think vulgarly if they so choose, but Henry sees what happened differently. Henry believes he isnât teaching young persons how to think aloofly any more because young persons have finally cottoned on to the fact that he doesnât like them. As far as Henry is concerned a conspiracy of the childish runs the world â a magic number of the worldâs most influential children (âWe are the Bilderbergies, happy girls and boysâ) meeting every Christmas and Easter in a secret candyfloss garden on an invisible lemon meringue island somewhere off the sugary coast of Never-Never Land. Irk them and youâve had it. Henry engaged their baby wrath by writing one of their number a letter of recommendation without crayoning in a little house bathed in eternal sunshine. Henry forgot the golden rule and made it rain. Or maybe he didnât forget, maybe he just
wanted
rain. He was getting pretty
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